Biochemical review demonstrates how metal ion coordination and redox properties drive protein function, highlighting their structural and catalytic importance across biological systems.
Metal ions play important roles in many biological systems. In particular, metal ions are required for the activity of a large number of enzymes and proteins. Metal ions are well suited for these functions because of the following properties: (1) Metal ions are almost always positively charged and, hence, electrophilic. They can act as Lewis acids for binding and activating substrates. (2) Many metals can exist stably in a number of different oxidation states differing by one or by several units. This allows these metals to participate in various types of oxidation-reduction processes. (3) Metal ions generally bind four or more ligands. By binding several protein side chains, metals can act as multidentate cross-linking agents.
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Jeremy M Berg (1987) studied this question.
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